sense and sensibility
by coffeeshop
Summary: axel, meet roxas. he's going to change your life, but he has a secret that you can't ever find out. there's no cure for his disease, and he's only got so long to live. please save him. akuroku, au


I.

Axel was never known for his rationality. It would have been closer to the truth if one had said he was the very definition of all things _irrational_--completely, 100 irrational, according to The Merriam-Webster Dictionary--

**ir-ra-tion-al - **_adj._

1. without the faculty of reason; deprived of reason

2. without or deprived of normal mental clarity or judgment

3. not in accordance to reason; utterly illogical

--_Utterly illogical._ It described a lot of things, Axel mused, a great deal more than most people thought. Colors, for example--crimson reds and dewy pinks bleeding at the edges of a dusky sky, the painted refractions of sunlight hitting the water at the perfect angle, endless oceans of falling, falling, _falling_ blue. To him, colors made no sense.

…But he was getting ahead of himself.

Axel was never known for his rationality. He was clear about his principles--don't fuck with me and I won't fuck with you--and about who he liked and who he didn't. He kept a strict line--_this is us and that is them, on the other side, and __**here**__ is the line_--the line, clean, smooth, and most importantly, uncrossed.

He wouldn't know until afterwards how close he had been, how close he had been to toeing, stepping, _jumping_ the dark, gaping divide in a giant leap of fucking faith.

Of course, by the time he did realize it he was left with only tired letters and brilliantly colored markers, ink splattered and stained into his skin, tracing out words and numbers that he couldn't quite make out. Still, he knew, quite instinctively, what they said--_'It all began with Roxas.'_

II.

It had been a good day, the kind where the sun was bright and the grass was green and the sky was a pure, pure blue. The air had smelled fresh and new and _clean_.

This is where the story begins. This is where, as cliché as it might be, Axel stepped out of his door and into Roxas's life.

And he did so, quite literally.

Cursing as he stumbled, Axel windmilled his arms for a fraction of a second before his fingers found purchase in a handful of prickly bushes and a sleeve of grey cotton polyblend.

He slowly straightened and focused his eyes on the object of his newfound un-grace, something blond and spiky and sitting in front of him, sporting a set of bored, nonplussed eyes that stared up into his.

"Who the fuck are you?" The blond boy asked from his perch on Axel's front doorstep. He picked at a few blades of grass, absently.

Axel stared on in disbelief, mouth opening in hopes of directing some of his internal dialogue out into the open for all to hear.

"Shouldn't that be my question?" Axel finally managed, faintly. His green eyes narrowed. "Is that my grass that you just uprooted?" He added threateningly, taking full advantage of his looming ability. Axel could loom very well, indeed.

"No," the boy lied calmly.

The redhead made a noise of extreme irritation, his foot unconsciously tapping impatiently on the cracked cement. There was a stretched silence. "What are you doing on my doorstep?" He seethed at length.

The blond shrugged, stood up and stretched. "Just got tired," he said finally. Axel peered closer, and to his surprise, discovered the obvious dark bags under the boy's eyes and the pale blue of several delicate blood vessels under almost sheer skin suddenly become apparent. He wondered how he could have missed it before--should this kid still be awake and walking around when he looked like that?

Before Axel could say anything more, the boy had gotten up and brushed himself off, already heading down the street.

"See ya around," he'd tossed over his shoulder, before he was gone.

If asked to remember his first meeting with Roxas, Axel would probably smirk and grandiloquently launch into a description of shady men and darkened alleyways and heroic rescues--the latter done by himself, of course.

But then there was the other side--behind the grinning mouth and the flashing green eyes, there was something else there, something deeper, something more _real._ There was pain and there was regret, but there was something else too, something that maybe Axel himself didn't know existed. But it did.

III.

Later that day, when Axel walked into a small lounge café--dimmed lights and an acoustic guitar weaving calming melodies in the softly buzzing air--and alighted his eyes on a messy head of dirty blond hair and pale skin, his only reaction was to let his face break out into a spiky grin.

IV.

"Hey. Roxas," Axel drawled. The blond was perched on a countertop, nimble fingers spinning a bottlecap on the smooth marbled surface.

The lighting of the café was soft and yellow, and it caught on Roxas's hair like liquid fire, throwing the tapered bridge of his nose and the curve of his cheek into sharp relief. Axel remembers what it was that he had first thought of Roxas. Intense eyes, determined quiet and above all, a delicate face that was oh-so-very-fragile. His skin looked like it would break with the slightest touch.

"What." An eyebrow rose, and eyes shifted and focused in on Axel.

"Can I touch your hair?"

There was a flash of movement--ow, fuck shit fuck, damnit that had _hurt_--and Axel was left nursing a stinging cheek and a bruised ego, cradling his face in his hands and glaring accusingly at Roxas, who seemed nonplussed and entirely too content to return to his bottlecap-twirling without a single thought to Axel's wellbeing.

"Motherfucker," Axel had muttered, before his lips had twisted in a psychotic leer. "I bet you do," he slurred.

"Do what," Roxas had said, placatingly so, and Axel had frowned in annoyance.

"Why, fuck your mother, of course."

Roxas had briefly contemplated punching Axel's lights out before dismissing it for flipping him the finger. He managed to count the last seconds of the spinning bottlecap--_25, 26, 27, that's a record_--before it had twirled off the countertop and plunged down onto the hard tile, clattering with a small clattering of noise before it lay forgotten.

Axel liked to think that the cap had fallen off the edge of the counter and taken with it all the awkwardness between him and Roxas--awkwardness turned to neutrality turned to routine turned to tentative friendship, all in one spin.

"Freak."

Axel beamed.

After the first night--or that was the second, or maybe was it the third…?--Axel visited Roxas in his café frequently, ordering expensive wines to go with decadent desserts that he knew Roxas would give him for free, if he only laughed and playfully ruffled the blond's hair.

Then, after the blond's shift had finished--4-6 on Mondays thru Thursdays and 11-3 on Saturdays--they would hang out, if Roxas wasn't too tired and Axel wasn't too drunk.

They would walk and shuffle down Oblivion Avenue, a long cobblestone venue filled with tall spiraling buildings sprouting from the ground like metal blossoms, curling and twisting with all the grace of steel quicksilver, and watch the world shift by in streams of consciousness--_who is this who are you __**who am I**_

Roxas would count his steps, mind swirling with the brown and white cobblestones whooshing past his dancing feet. The city at night wasn't a good place to be, Axel had told him once. They had sat outside once, watching the streets come to life, filling with an unseen energy, pushing and pulling at their hearts. The streets were strung high with lights and sounds and smells, filling and swelling and sweetening the air with its saccharine tang.

V.

"Axel," a voice intoned softly. "Are you okay?"

Axel shifted, slowly. "…Demyx?" he questioned, voice dulled and flat.

The door creaked open slightly, and a blond head peeked in. "Hey," the smaller male eased himself in, closing the door behind him with a gentle _click._

Axel sat up, nodding slightly. The movement sent a draft of air up to his nose. Fuck, he smelled like shit. Axel tried not to wrinkle his nose at his own stench.

"Hey, have you been crying?"

"What the fuck do you think," Axel snapped bitterly, green eyes flashing in a way that they used to, before they flatlined and faded back to a misty, monochrome green.

Demyx hesitated.

"No one could have known," the blond finally offered, tentatively. "Not even you."

_Not even you._

Axel shrugged lifelessly. "Doesn't change anything," he said, lukewarm. "Sorry."

VI.

Axel shivered in the cold December air, shrinking into the warmth of his forest green scarf. It complimented his eyes, Axel had been told, and so now he wore it whenever he could. Roxas said that it looked tacky. Then again, Roxas was probably just jealous…

Axel's lips curled upwards at the thought of Roxas's café. Read: Roxas's warm, _heated_ café. With hot coffee. Yum.

His black Converses slipped on the ice, and he cursed, a hand outstretched to brace his fall. Quickly, he brushed himself off and glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed.

No one paid him any attention, so Axel simply continued, eyes now peeled for any vindictive ice patches intent on bringing about his early death.

Today will be my victory yet again, Axel crowed mentally to the wintry landscape as his eyes found the twinkling lights outside of the café. The soft jingle of the bell floated down to his ears as a blast of hot, cozy heat fanned past his face, caressing his windblown cheeks.

"Close the door, Axel, please," a woman called from behind the counter, a wine glass in one hand a dishrag in the other. Her stick-straight black hair fell softly across her pale shoulders, and her large brown eyes smiled at him even while his mouth curled in a slight frown.

Axel grinned at her and slipped the glass door shut, flexing his fingers and frowning when the feeling did not return to his fingertips. Huh. How odd, maybe he would have to get his fingers amputated.

The thought caused a wash of despair to flood through Axel's person, his shoulder sinking and his hair drooping limply across his forehead.

"Your hair is droopy today," a voice commented from behind him, and Axel whipped around, dejectedly.

"Oh, its you," he mumbled. Roxas raised an eyebrow.

"You were expecting someone else?" The blond asked monotonously. His eyes flashed with amusement.

He has pretty eyes, Axel found himself thinking. He peered closely at the blond. He looked paler than usual, today. "No," he replied sadly, and then fingered his hair. Roxas was right; it was drooping.

"Why is it droopy?" Roxas continued as his hands worked to adroitly balancing a stack of plates and bowls, one on top of another.

"Because I need to get my fingers amputated." Axel stated matter-of-factly, smartly raising both of his hands and wiggling the digits. "See, I can't feel anything in them, which means that I have frostbite."

"It's called the _cold_, you flamer. Doesn't mean you have to get your hand chopped off."

"Fingers," Axel corrected. "But, you know, _isn't_ it frostbite? I mean, when you can't feel anything in 'em, and its all cold and numb and--"

"Freak," Roxas rolled his eyes and set down the stack of china--it had doubled in size in the space of ten seconds, Axel noted, amazed--and leaned in to peer at Axel's fingers. "Take off your gloves," the blond ordered.

Axel obeyed.

"There. You see? If you had frostbite, then your hands"--_fingers,_ Axel corrected again, mentally--"would be all blue and purple-y. They're normal looking, aren't they?"

The redhead stared at Roxas's fingers, wrapped around his wrists, and shivered. Roxas's breath was warm against his skin, and it was sending strange jolts of electricity through his spine. "Uh, well, around the nail part it's a bit purpl--"

"Oh my God, shut _up_, you asswipe," Roxas huffed, his fingers uncurling from Axel's as the blond moved to pick up the stack of plates, already tilting dangerously towards one side.

Axel grinned as he watched the boy stalk across the room in a cloud of irritation, before he blinked down at his fingers, stripped of their black gloves and now, tingling warmly.

"Hey, Axel." The redhead turned to see Tifa, the owner of the café, standing off to the side, her features darkened under the shadow of the doorway, but smiling nevertheless.

"Hi, Tifa," Axel greeted with a snarky grin. "Getting good business today?"

The brunette shrugged a little, a hand lifting to wave a little. "It's been okay. Decent for December, at least. No one wants to travel outside in this weather," she pointed out.

Axel glanced out the windows, frosted over and blurring the shapes moving outside. "Mm," he made a sound of agreement.

"So you want anything to drink?" Tifa asked as Axel followed her over to the bar.

"Coffee?" Axel asked hopefully, wondering if she would realize that Roxas usually gave him coffee for free. Huh, she probably knew.

"Okay, and well, maybe I'll give it to you for free today," Tifa teased, smiling slightly. Damn, Axel thought as he beamed back angelically, I guess she is smarter than she looks. Not that she doesn't look smart or anything, Axel added on mentally. It's just that, with those… assets of hers, it looks like all her brains would be down--

"Ouch," Axel winced, a hand raising to rub at the back of his head, accusing eyes following the hand that was retracting to fall down by a skinny hip that was connected to a disgruntled Roxas.

"Stop staring at my boss like that," he grumbled, blue eyes glaring at the floor and a flush of pink settling on pale cheeks.

Axel shrugged. "But you've got to admit, its kind of mesmerizin--"

Roxas stared blankly at Axel, before he turned away and started clearing up the countertop, blatantly ignoring whatever Axel had to say next.

"--m just sayin'!" The redhead protested, his face splitting into a grin nevertheless.

Roxas finally looked up, his usual cavalier smile twisting at his lips as he opened his mouth to say something--

"--See, I knew you'd agree!" Axel interjected with a beam.

Roxas just sighed.

VII.

Their friendship had been sudden and unexpected, but familiar all the same. It was almost as if he had known Roxas all his life, Axel mused later, eyes tinged with regret.

VIII.

The two were in Axel's flat, looking through piles of old, cardboard boxes that were stacked in the corner of his living room.

"Do these even work anymore?" Roxas inquired dubiously, squinting hard at the large, clunky headphones that were bigger than his fist.

"Shut up, they still work really good," Axel threw over his shoulder before he resumed digging through the dusty confines of a large box.

"Still work really _well_," Roxas corrected absentmindedly, brushing off the dust on the black-and-white headphones. "Can I test these out?"

"Mmm," Axel muttered. The redhead paused in his search to lean back onto his haunches, eyebrows drawn downwards in perplexity.

"Damnit, I can't find it," he remarked to the blond, who was already halfway across the redhead's flat. He was kneeling by an outdated CD player that was held together only by duct-tape and sheer force of will on Axel's part.

There was a lapse in the conversation then that was only filled with the sound of Axel cursing and slamming boxes down and Roxas fiddling with knobs and buttons, until the faint strains of a Red Hot Chili Peppers song filtered through the air.

"Hey, I didn't know you listened to this stuff," Axel stood and made his way towards the blond.

Roxas turned and shrugged slightly, a slight frown tugging at his lips as he concentrated on the music. Axel watched him silently for a few minutes, before he tugged out the cord and reconnected it to the speakers.

_--now listen what I say ohhh, _the song sang.

"Hey," Roxas protested quietly, before he lowered the headphones till they were left hanging limply around his neck.

"I like this song, too," Axel shot him a half-smile, before he threw himself onto the couch and patted the space beside him. Roxas hesitantly sat beside him.

"When do you have to home?" The redhead asked offhandedly. Roxas merely shrugged--he had never said much about his home life, and Axel had to admit that he was curious.

"I can stay till 8, at the latest," he said dubiously.

"Oh, strict parents?"

Roxas shrugged. "Something like that. I don't live with my parents."

Axel's eyebrows shot up. "You don't look older than 18."

Roxas scowled. "I'm not--I'm 16. I'm living with… my brother."

Axel laughed. "Ah, I see. College?"

Roxas gave him a half-smile. "Hollow Bastion University, but he studies at home, most of the time."

"Why would he do that?"

"To take care of me and my little sister, obviously. Dumbass," Roxas teased, and if the subject was painful, he hid it well.

"Oh?" Axel inquired. "Why, are you the out-of-control type? Bringing girls home late at night? Doing questionable things in school?"

"Of course," he said smartly, avoiding Axel's playful punch.

"Hey!" He yelped when the fist connected with his arm, before he dissolved into a fit of giggles as the fists soon turned into tickling fingers.

"Ah-ahah--hahaha, A-Axel, stop! Hahha-hah!"

"Hah, admit it!" Axel smirked. "You're visiting shady bars and picking up girls!"

Roxas choked on his giggles, eyes bright with restrained tears of mirth. "Ahah-haha fine! Hahah Ax--" 

Suddenly his laughter stopped as Roxas's eyes widened substantially before his whole body went stiff.

Axel's amusement slowly trickled away when he realized that Roxas wasn't responding anymore.

"Roxas?" He questioned, concern quickly filling his bright eyes. "Hey, Roxas? Roxas!"

The blond's teeth ground together in an effort to keep from crying out. "It--it hurts," he finally managed to say.

Axel frowned, lowering his face so that it was mere inches away from the blond's in an effort to examine him more closely. "Oh, oh my god, I'm really sorry," he worried, truly apologetic. "Are you okay? Where does it hurt?"

Roxas pulled himself up, with great effort. "I'm fine," he brushed off with a tightened grin. "Seriously. My neck just tenses up like this, sometimes."

Axel didn't look convinced. "Are you sure that's… normal?" He questioned. "Geez, that looked painful."

Roxas rolled his eyes. "Stop _worrying,_ Axel. Sheesh, you sound like a mom."

The blond stayed for the better part of the next hour before he finally left Axel's apartment, eyes clouded in thought and clutching the monochrome headphones in one hand.

Keep it, Axel had said before he'd sent Roxas away. I don't need 'em anymore.

IX.

Roxas met Demyx one cold December morning when Axel called Roxas, out-of-the-blue, asking if he could come over to Axel's apartment do you remember where it is.

"Yeah," Roxas had answered in response, rolling his eyes. He came over to the redhead's apartment every night after work for the past two weeks or so--how could he _not_ know where it was?

"Come over now," Axel had been unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. "And knowing you, Roxas, you probably haven't even looked outside." He'd hung up then, leaving Roxas with a disgruntled expression twisted over his features.

Outside? What was so special about out--oh. Roxas's breath caught in his throat as his eyes alighted on the snow, drifting down slowly like flower petals.

"Oh," he breathed, before a smile spread over his features. His breath frosted the window over slightly, but he took no notice as he turned and struggled into a warmer jacket.

He clambered down the hallway and into the kitchen. His brother was sitting in a large HBU sweatshirt and grey sweatpants, drinking a mug of coffee.

"Hey, Cloud," Roxas greeted. His brother nodded in return.

"I'm going to a friend's place for a while, okay?" He said while reaching for his scarf. Cloud's eyes--blue, like Roxas's--widened slightly, but his face showed no other hint of the obvious surprise.

"Don't you have work today?"

"Not until 11. And I'll call if I'm going to be late," Roxas frowned as he accidentally pulled the scarf too tight.

Cloud hesitated. "Roxas… you know your condition…"

The younger blond looked up. "Cloud…" Roxas sighed. "I--I know. But you also know what they were saying…"

Cloud nodded and looked away, uncomfortable. "Just be careful," he said finally, a neutrality settling in his tone.

Roxas smiled back. "Thanks, bro," he said before he slipped out and away.

X.

"Axel, you need to get ready…" A voice called through the door. Namine, Axel realized belatedly. Roxas's sister.

He closed his eyes. No, he didn't. He could stay here and drift away. Then he wouldn't have to see.

Maybe he could call Roxas now, and ask him what he was doing. The blond would irritatedly snap at Axel for calling him during work, but then his tone would even out and soon, they'd be laughing again, just like before.

Like before.

Axel's heart twisted.

…_you say that we're all tied up_

_and wrapped up in useless states of mind_

_but at the same time we're still young_

_we have the time to realize we were wrong…_


End file.
